#20: Julie and Julia, Julie Powell

Julie and Julia is another book that I liked fine enough, but didn't love. I suppose I feel sort of ambivalent about it, as I don't care to spend much time blogging about it. The writing is good - the kind of good where you don't notice the writing - but I just never got sucked into the story. (As always, I was curious to see what Amazon reviewers thought - more people hated it than loved it, and wow, the haters really hated it.)

Perhaps it was partly because I don't cook and I knew almost nothing about Julia Child. (The only thing I knew, actually, besides the fact that she was a cook, was that she served in the OSS. I didn't know the name of her famous cookbook, which I'm sure Julie Powell would find ridiculous. And actually, I realized that when I "think" of Julia Child, I somehow see her as Dr. Ruth. Go figure.) So I wasn't locked into the concept. On top of that, I'm a notoriously picky eater so I couldn't identify with cooking hardships, like boiling lobsters alive. (Hell, I don't think I'd touch a single recipe in that book.) So, in short, loving Julie and Julia for the cooking was out.

But really, it all, er, boils down to this: I just didn't connect with Powell. (Which is sort of funny because we have a lot in common, like our home state and alma mater and rabid affection for Civilization.) We clearly don't have the same sense of humor, so I didn't find most of the jokes funny. But more than anything, I felt like Powell skipped the hard stuff. The narrative was pretty jumpy and I often felt that she ended scenarios before discussing the fall-out or the resulting emotions. As a result, I had a hard time feeling her situation and empathizing with her, which I think is essential in a memoir like this. More than once, I was surprised by an emotional revelation - like when she and her husband were going through a rough patch - because she would mention it for a sentence or two and then not delve into it again for another 50 pages.

There are two other, similar books that I sprang to mind as I read Julie and Julia: A.J. Jacobs' The Know-It-All and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love - and they're both, hilariously, mentioned in some form in the credits. I have to say, I far preferred these other two memoirs. The Know-It-All was just awesomely funny (and, for those who don't know, about a guy's quest to read the encyclopedia from A to Z). But to the earlier point, with Eat, Pray, Love, I totally respected that Gilbert put all her emotions - good, bad, and ugly - out there on the table. She was neurotic, yes, but I totally understood what she was doing and why. But as much as I loved that book, there are legions of smart women who hated it, for that very same reason - so in closing, I'll just say, perhaps Julie and Julia is for them?

Next up: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. With not so many weeks until the New Year, I am trying to read quick in order to reach the blessed 30!